Tomorrow Is Gonna Come Too Soon
by kkiiittttyyyyy
Summary: Happily ever after? I figured after some time that it didn't exist in that way we – I – wanted it to. N/B, implied C/B


**Title:** Tomorrow Is Gonna Come Too Soon

**Author:** Kitty

**Pairings:** NB, implied CB

**Summary:** Work on the happy. Ever after is – I've began to figure – the whole journey.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own GG. Geez.

**A/N:** I don't know if this is any better than my previous one but I'm in an angsty, NB mood. Enjoy, bbs! :

_Here's to the nights we felt alive_

_Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry_

_Here's to goodbye_

_Tomorrow is gonna come too soon_

***

Remember when you used to believe in happily ever after? I can.

It was a quiet, simpler time.

My parents were happy, I was happy. Everyone was.

But now I'm older. And I'm learning.

***

There is a simplicity that comes with youth. An ease in believing, in hoping, in dreaming. For the longest time, it was something I clung to. There were always signs of despair, of things breaking at the seams. But when I was young and full of hope, I did my best to deny it. I tried to ignore the screams and the fights, the sickness and the abuse. The world was a happy and peaceful place. Everything that said otherwise was false, false, false.

Nathaniel Archibald was my boyfriend. I loved him. He loved me. It wasn't always simple but at the end of everything, there was always a "Sweetheart, it's okay."

I fought for peace and quiet and stability and perfection because really, what else was there to fight for?

***

For so long, it was easy to believe in the good times – in the dream. But as I started growing, I also started learning. And when I learned, I began to know. And knowing, oh knowing, was such a great curse.

He was not Prince Charming. He was not perfect after all. Nate made horrible, horrible mistakes.

But then I did too.

Things strained and they pulled and they threatened to break so many times. Life was messy and it slowly dawned on me that maybe order and rightfulness and stability were all myths. Maybe.

When my parents split up, I cried for days. It broke me a little bit, I must admit. But then I resisted and tried to cover it up and I kept hoping. So what if my father left just a few months after my best friend did? It wasn't the end. There were other things, other relationships, other people, to depend on. These events were perhaps rarities, freaks of nature, oddballs, quirks, that lost their place in the system.

So a little shit happened. So I was a bit down.

There was no way to go but up.

***

Things hadn't been the same since then. They'd been…worse.

My mother rarely spoke to me – not that she ever spoke much in the first place. By then, though, the rare praises were gone, replaced by a string of criticisms and complaints that felt like multiple needles being poked into my skin. She pulled back even further from me and it hurt. But I kept smiling.

Not all was lost.

He was there, my Prince, and he always would be. Nate would make me all better every single time.

He had to. Or else.

Or else. I might not know what to do.

***

The hard times came. And yes, for a while it was like I might break. But I hurt so much and it took so long for everything to go away that eventually, I learned. They kept poking and prodding and piercing and picking at me. They pushed and they shoved and – BAM! I stopped caring.

Disillusionment? It became a comfort.

***

I learned early that happily ever after was a myth.

I can't say now when it was exactly. Perhaps it was a moment – that second I learned about my boyfriend and my best friend. Or maybe it was when I stupidly lost my virginity to Chuck Bass. It could even have been that instance when I admitted to myself that things between Nate and I would never be the same again. It could easily have been everything – one big slow and painful process that went on and on until I started paying attention.

Everyone suffered the reality of life's inconstancy.

I was no exception.

***

For so very long, I lived for the future. In a way, it was because my present never satisfied me.

Something was always wrong and out of place and messing up. The past was riddled with mistakes and the present proved to be of various sorts of disasters just waiting to happen.

Trust was hard to come by and love was too. Everyone was selfish and inconsiderate and it was just plain difficult to care so much.

And so I tried to be indifferent and callous and uncaring and invulnerable. Inviolable. I challenged the pain and asked for the onslaught of bullets and knives and daggers and mallets and what-have-you. Blair Waldorf never did anything in halves. If I was going to fall, I was going to do it from the highest building, the most dangerous cliff.

There must have been a point in it all. Somewhere. The harder I pushed and the more careless I was, the faster the pain and negativity would come. And eventually go.

***

The world is full of failure and disappointment and agony. So I thought, "Bring it on."

I knew from the moment I let go of Nate Archibald for the second time that I might never have him back again. But I'd become so secure in the pain and the suffering that anything remotely happy became fearful. At least with the evil and the sadness, I knew what I was getting. It was horrible and terrifying and menacing but honest. It gave no false hope, no promises. It was awful and awful was a constant. And constant – consistency – was comforting. Even when it hurt.

***

I became numb, after a while, and maybe that was why it dragged on for so long as it did.

My parents never got back together. My best friend never was my best friend – in the truest sense – ever again. Yale would never be for me and Brooklyn would never just be a place I despised. Things happened. I happened. We stopped happening. I kept being. Whatever.

I pained and I grieved but life went on.

I stopped in the middle of the street and time kept passing. I broke down and wept and maybe even threw a few things around but people kept on living.

Settling, mediocrity, settling, mediocrity, settling, mediocrity.

A girl had to keep going after a while.

You know?

***

I forget now how it happened but it did.

Slowly.

One day I woke up and the New York sky just seemed a little bit brighter. And then my coffee started to taste just a little bit richer and the streets seemed more alive than usual.

School was starting to be fun again and Serena started letting me back in. I even dared to think that my own walls were breaking down.

***

I used to wish for perfection. And perhaps, what broke me wasn't so much what these people did to me directly but what they did to my dreams.

Because every little girl wants her own happy ending. And they were trying to rewrite mine.

***

Forever. Constancy. Stability. Dependency.

Again and again and again.

Animals and things – they're so similar in that they always give you the same results. A bird always chirps and a dog will always bark. Caterpillars turn into butterflies and spiders spin their treacherous webs. That table over there? It was a table, is a table, will always be a table. Sameness is only for those that don't live.

But people, people are gems. You learned that the hard – the only acceptable – way. People change and they move and they leave and often, they come back too. People have needs. Wants. And they get confused and they try and they fail but sometimes they succeed too.

They aren't forever or constant or stable or dependable. But then they're the only parts of this world worth really loving.

***

Happily ever after? I figured after some time that it didn't exist in that way we – I – wanted it to.

Why? Because there is no certain, specific, ever after. Because it never ends. Because it keeps going. Because staying is a choice, just as much as leaving is. And every day that we wake up is another day to make that other person hold on. And vice versa.

***

"You're still here," I whispered quietly.

"I am," he said with a smile, his green eyes piercing into mine. "Is that really so surprising?"

And honestly? No. Because things change and people leave and happiness flees when it does. But that doesn't mean that things will always be sad or unruly or even majorly fucked up. People can come or go or linger or be in there for a terribly long haul. But you have to give them that space, that time, that chance.

Work on the happy. Ever after is – I've began to figure – the whole journey.

***

_Don't let me let you go._


End file.
